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Adela
Maria Josefa is Bernarda’s senile 80-year-old mother who lives in an interior room of the house and deliriously tries to escape several times in the play. She accuses Bernarda of locking her away and neglecting her, and she repeatedly announces that she wants to move to the coast and get married. The whole family works together to lock her back in her room at the end of Act 1, and in the middle of Act 3, she escapes onto the stage holding a lamb, which she claims as her child. Maria Josefa’s character represents women’s repressed desire for freedom. Her dream of leaving Bernarda’s house by marrying (which she shares with Bernarda’s daughters) demonstrates how rural Spain’s traditional honor code continues to oppress women from generation to generation.
Maria Josefa Quotes in The House of Bernarda Alba
The The House of Bernarda Alba quotes below are all either spoken by Maria Josefa or refer to Maria Josefa. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1
Quotes
BERNARDA: Help her! All of you!
(They all drag the old woman off the stage)
MARIA JOSEFA: I want to get away from here! Bernarda! To get married at the edge of the sea, at the edge of the sea!
FAST CURTAIN
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Act 2
Quotes
(Outside, a woman screams, and there is a great uproar)
ADELA: They should let her go! Don’t go out there!
MARTIRIO: (Looking at ADELA) Let her pay for what she did.
BERNARDA: (In the archway) Finish her off before the Civil Guard gets here! Burning coals in the place where she sinned!
ADELA: (Clutching her womb) No! No!
BERNARDA: Kill her! Kill her!
CURTAIN
Act 3
Quotes
MARIA JOSEFA: It’s true. Everything is very dark. Just because I have white hair you think I can’t have babies. And—yes! Babies and babies and babies! This child will have white hair, and have another child, and that one, another, and all of us with hair of snow will be like the waves, one after another after another. Then we’ll all settle down, and we’ll all have white hair, and we’ll be foam on the sea. Why isn’t there any white foam here? Here there’s nothing but black mourning shawls.
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Maria Josefa Quotes in The House of Bernarda Alba
The The House of Bernarda Alba quotes below are all either spoken by Maria Josefa or refer to Maria Josefa. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1
Quotes
BERNARDA: Help her! All of you!
(They all drag the old woman off the stage)
MARIA JOSEFA: I want to get away from here! Bernarda! To get married at the edge of the sea, at the edge of the sea!
FAST CURTAIN
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2
Quotes
(Outside, a woman screams, and there is a great uproar)
ADELA: They should let her go! Don’t go out there!
MARTIRIO: (Looking at ADELA) Let her pay for what she did.
BERNARDA: (In the archway) Finish her off before the Civil Guard gets here! Burning coals in the place where she sinned!
ADELA: (Clutching her womb) No! No!
BERNARDA: Kill her! Kill her!
CURTAIN
Act 3
Quotes
MARIA JOSEFA: It’s true. Everything is very dark. Just because I have white hair you think I can’t have babies. And—yes! Babies and babies and babies! This child will have white hair, and have another child, and that one, another, and all of us with hair of snow will be like the waves, one after another after another. Then we’ll all settle down, and we’ll all have white hair, and we’ll be foam on the sea. Why isn’t there any white foam here? Here there’s nothing but black mourning shawls.
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Explanation and Analysis:
